Northern Colorado saw the bright side of Saturday’s 42-10 loss at Purdue. The Bears got a little national exposure. They got to test themselves against a Big Ten team. They got to see what central Indiana looks like. Oh, yes, they also left $400,000 richer.

Sure, “body bag games,” games in which small schools often sacrifice their pride for a big paycheck, have been around since the face mask. But recently, the rising price of bringing in teams, any team, for a home game is looking like the rising price of gas.

In today’s college football economics, $400,000 is tip money. Texas paid Florida Atlantic $900,000. Nebraska paid Western Michigan and San Jose State $850,000 each. Florida State will pay Colorado $600,000 for its Sept. 27 game in Jacksonville, Fla. Chattanooga’s two games against Florida State and Oklahoma will bring in nearly $1 million. Athletic department officials estimate that in the last 10 years, top college football payouts have doubled.

What gives? Is there suddenly a bidding war to get the Florida Atlantic Owls or Chattanooga Mocs in your stadium? No. But there is supply and demand at work here.

The NCAA presidents, desperate for more revenue to balance their sinking athletic departments, voted for a permanent 12-game schedule starting in 2006. With many schools scheduling up to 10 years in advance, teams were desperate to find an opponent for that 12th slot.

“It gave us leverage we didn’t have before,” Chattanooga AD Rick Hart said.

As a Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) team whose game counts toward a bowl-eligible minimum of six victories, Florida Atlantic is in even better bargaining position. However, there aren’t enough FAUs to go around. Thus, Maine winds up opening Iowa’s season and UNC goes to Purdue.

Please, don’t feel sorry for Texas and Nebraska. They made out fine financially. Texas’ Memorial Stadium seats 85,123. Its average ticket price is $75. By playing a home game instead of an away game at, say, a 50,000-seat stadium, the home game makes Texas an additional $2.6 million.

These are games the larger schools don’t have to return and give them a seventh home game. It’s an easy win — usually — and about the same paycheck as if they brought in Ohio State.

“We’re in a time when there’s more financial problems in athletic departments than ever before,” Texas coach Mack Brown said. “Schools on tight strings for their whole department are having to play games like that.”

Benefits to smaller schools are huge. Last year, Chattanooga played at Arkansas for a relatively meager $325,000 and used it for a state-of-the-art video editing system.

The $450,000 Eastern Washington received from Texas Tech and also Colorado the first two weeks of the season represents 14 percent of the Eagles’ entire athletic department budget.

Hinrichs will use the $400,000 he received from Purdue to pay off scholarships.

“You’re not just going out and selling the program away and not giving your student-athletes a chance to compete,” Hinrichs said. “If you’re using it just to get beat, I don’t like it.”

While enough carcasses have been strewn across the college football landscape these first two weeks to show body bag games still exist — Texas Christian 67, Stephen F. Austin 7; South Florida 56, Tennessee-Martin 7 — the gap has definitely closed.

Appalachian State became a household name after beating Michigan in last year’s opener. Cal-Davis beat Stanford. Maine has won at Mississippi State. New Hampshire once won at Rutgers. For at least a week, the nation’s football fans are aware these programs exist.

“If you talk to our student-athletes, they’re excited about playing these games,” said Eastern Washington AD Bill Chaves, whose Eagles took Colorado into late in the fourth quarter Saturday before losing 31-24. “They’re competitors. They don’t want to play a best-of-seven series. By the same token, in a one-game format, our guys are excited to see what they can do against the best.”

With a higher price tag, scheduling is becoming extremely strategic. Small schools won’t schedule major powers far in advance for fear the payout in the contract will look like chump change by the time they play the game. Or they’ll include a minimal buyout they can pay in case a deeper-pocketed suitor comes along.

Sure beats airplane food.

Money for drubbing (usually)

Examples of payouts received by non-Bowl Championship Series conference schools to play at BCS schools this season, and the scores of those games:

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